fuck it all propah!

it's not over, not over, not over yet

OK, seriously - It's All Gone Pete Tong is some funny shite. Essentially a Spinal Tap for the technofite. What it's really all about is a Scott Weiland lookin' mother fucker by the name of Frankie Wilde, the supreme dj of the day, going deaf and blagging it for roughly a year until he just "disappears". Now, I like to think metaphorically on occasion, and this one lends itself ripely to the "going deaf" bit as "selling out", which in essence is the same as going artistically deaf (insert correlating The Weatherman bit here). Whatevah's clevah, as I say. Apparently the phrase "it's all gone Pete Tong" is Cockney rhyming slang that plays off the name of superstar DJ Pete Tong.

-dance with the speaker 'til you hear it blow-

happy halloween

chopsocky tech sounds of the day

Jackson and his Computer Band - smash.

rome if you want to

After utilizing the services of my 'on demand' that comcast so graciously provides, I have fallen under the spell of hbo's latest drama series, Rome. I still have a few eps unitl I'm caught up with the sunday night slot, but I have come to one solid conclusion. And that is that I can't help but wonder how closely Atia of the Julii is based on Edina Monsoon from Ab Fab. Not just because of the striking resemblance, mind you, but also becuase of their wry cunning. You decide:





-stoli babe-

lost

It's a simple premise. You find something, and you submit it to the staff at Found Magazine. Then they publish a picture of it with a brief description. What makes these discoveries interesting isn't the object itself so much as where & how it was found.

-but not forgotten-

stampede

Friday was one of those rare days out here in the plains - overcast & rainy, the kind that leaves you somewhat out of sorts because you're not used to them. That evening, I wound up over at the 12th street apts in denver, and after a botched attempt to catch a show at the larimer, ended up meeting derr, who had just left a show at the fillmore, and eventually called it a night.

Saturday, on the other hand, was gorgeous - a perfect autumn day. Full advantage was taken of the outdoors with the 4th tailgate of the season. Campus was packed for parents weekend, and the Buffs triumphed over the Kansas U. Jayhawks, 44-13. The win returned CU to the BCS at 24 (although we're ranked 28 in the human polls). Hoo-ra!



-herd is the werd-

last week's reviews today

the earlies - These Were the Earlies: Couldn't quite put my finger on who they sound like until it hit me over breakfast this morning - some of the lyrical intonations remind me of later day mercury rev set to sparse yet mildy epic soundscapes. This is a pretty cool disc.

depeche mode - Playing the Angel: Give me the last album by the Faint instead, please.

craig wedren - Lapland: A lot has changed since craig's former band, Shudder to Think, were opening for Fugazi, so much in fact that this is hardly recognizable as having spawned from that band at all. From what I understand this was a bunch of work that was meant for soundtracks that never made the cut. Ouch, kind of like 'bam thwok' - never should have seen the light of day.

the light footwork - One State, Two States: Boyfriend/girlfriend twee pop, which has it's moments if you're in that kind of mood.

dirty three - Cinder: Ever since the Tortoise show, I've been all gaga again for live instrumental music. So in between exhausting my tortoise & mogwai collections, I have stumbled upon theses guys after hearing the track 'doris'. My only previous experience with them was from the In The Fishtank series they paired up with Low on, which was kind of boring. An australian band fronted by a classically trained violinist who also plays with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, with some guest vox by chan marshall. It turns out that 'doris' is the highlight and it winds up solidly rooted in *fishtank*doldrums.

-I heard you say-

friday occasionally techno-ish sounds of the day courtesy of...

...Dublab. It's been over two years since I last checked out this site, and there have been vast improvements since my last visit. Good work labrats.

-the course that my tread had already traversed-

easily amused

Hey ladies, you could sure use a little beeeEEEEEAAAAAaaritooOOOOOoooone!

slow and steady

I had been tossing the idea around of going to the Tortoise / Daniel Lanois show, but wasn't quite sure of how it would all play out, since Lanois was slated as the headliner, Toroise the opener. As I agonized over this simple quandary of whether I should go or stay, I happened to win a pair of passes which pretty much made up my mind for me. Steph M was cool enough to make some dinner before we all headed over to the show. Tortoise, currently a five-piece, opened up with a solid set of their standard instrument rotationalisms, during much of which boasted two drummers, and the best use of xylophones since Frank Zappa.



And as it turns out, Tortoise was actually Daniel Lanois' backing band for this tour, so we essentially got a second set of tortoise with the neil youngish-ish stylings of mr. lanois (probably best known for his production work along side Brian Eno for U2), which was mostly cool, especially the songs with the pedal steel. The singing was kept to a minimum, except for a handful of solo tracks towards the end of the set which were a bit of a snoozer, but otherwise it was a great night of music.

You can download the whole show, with the help of your favorite bittorrent client, with a simple clicky.

-setting my face to the hillside-

winning is always my prooOOOUUUUuud

OOOOOOOOHHHH OOOOOOHHH OOOOOOHHHH I'm on fIIIIIIIRRRREEE (upm)

blue screen life

Thanks to the wonders of newfangled technology of bittorrent and the archaic nostalgia of vcrs, I have finally [mostly] caught up with nip/tuck this season. See , as we in the mountain timezone are blessed with network primetime starting at 7 as opposed to 8, we are often at the mercy of a more random time zone reshuffling of our beloved cable programming. This is great for sports (sunday nfl starts at 11, for instance), but occasionally stuff gets completely messed with. Ahh, South Park at 9 -nope, more like 11. Same goes for the absolutely twisted antics of those charismatic plastic surgeons in the miami locale whose program title was able to slash the previously infamous slangism, nip and tuck. Anyway, I watched eps 2 & 3 on the lappy (I actually remembered to set the vcr last night for ep 4, which I'll likely watch tomorrow) in between other regularly scheduled shows - extras, baseball playoffs (SO addictive, even if I can't root for the red sox or against the yankees anymore) & invasion (hasn't been a show this creepy since 'V').

-well it was a wednesday-

stinxs

SUX to be INXS, with their dork of a new lead singer.

listening post

kiss me deadly - Misty Medleys: Do you think they named themselves after that Lita Ford song? It's unlikely since they sound heavily influenced by the Sugarcubes and Blonde Redhead, but that's all I can think about when I hear their name.

guided by voices - Suitcase 2: Another 4 disc, 100 song collection of demos, rejects, etc, just like the first that came out a few years back, Suitcase: Failed Experiments & Trashed Aircraft. There will be an abrdiged version released at the same time, which may be a better place to start if you're still a GBV novice, or have a short attention span. Being somewhat of a GBV fanatic myself, even I find the suitcase to be a bit draining at times. But when you find one of Pollard's gems, it's SO worth it.

swords - Metropolis: No, not S Words. But I will describe it with one - stodgy.

the orb - Orbsessions Vol 1: Yep, more orb. This one is some sort of 'bits & pieces' comp. You know, the stuff that wasn't good enough for albums, but sounds markedly like the recent Okie Dokie... material, but a tinge less twangy.

sun kil moon - Tiny Cities: I've been waiting for this ever since I saw Mark Kozelek perform solo, and whip out 'Dramamine'. Following in the footsteps of What's Next to the Moon, the AC/DC covers album, we have the Modest Mouse cover album, under the Sun Kil Moon monicker, but it's just Mark with entirely new acoustic arrangements for these biting classics.

githead - Profile: Could a band be more obscurely british sounding?

-went to a party last saturday night-

we have a spinner

Quite possibly the best tgs ever!

-lathe'd-

rank & file

Now that the red sox season is over, I can focus my occassional sports fandom fully on football. The colorado Buffaloes are ranked for the first time since last season after they clobbered Texas A&M 48-20 on saturday (it should be noted that almost all A&M's points were scored on our second stringers). And although it's only #24, it's still in the Top 25, right? Let's just hope we can hold our own against #2 Texas this coming saturday. Here's a shot from inside the game right around half-time. Unfortunately my big head is blocking the scoreboard:



As usual, the tailgate crew were in full effect with the VW turtle bus outside Folsom. Post game we whiled away the hours in lafayette with some texas hold 'em (completely unrelated to the fact CU beat texas a&m, btw). Sunday was nasty weather wise, and was mostly spent watching the Pats & the Broncos games, and other assorted network television programming.

just admit it

You'll probably find this interesting, because you know you watch it.

weekly impressions on musical releases

fiona apple - Extraordinary Machine v.1: This initial leak is interesting because it was never intended for release, and apparently boasts different arrangements on most all of the tracks. Add on the publicity of protests outside ms. apple's record label for their alledgedly not wanting to release it, and curiosity gets the best of you, even if you're really only familiar with 'criminal'. It's been sitting on my hard drive for a while now, never played.

fiona apple - Extraordinary Machine v.2: However, by the time I got around to comparing it to the retail version released this week, I was bored to tears by both versions which mainly showcase how badly she wishes she was Tori Amos.

the deadly snakes - Porcella: I saw a picture in the newspaper this morning of a 15 foot python that had burst in the middle, due to swallowing a live 6 foot alligator (neither survived). The accompanying article was about how florida wildlife officials were worried about "top-feeders" such as discarded pet pythons, which were becoming all the more prevalant, were messing with the fragile everglades' ecosystem. These Deadly Snakes do not have nearly as profound of an impact on the passe genre of 'garage rock' which they unfortunately find themselves lumped into. But that's not to say that this is a terrible release, because it has at least flown under the radar of the pre-existing 15 minutes of fame bands that give the genre a bad name (i.e. The Vines, the Hives, etc). But I most certainly digress, and if you've bothered to read this far, you might be wondering what this actually sounds like. Well, it starts off garage rock-y, but ends up in an Elvis Costello meets Calexico kind of mess.

brakes - Give Blood: Besides rhyming with the Deadly Snakes, these guys are nuts, and they get right to the point about it - most songs clock in at under 2 minutes, just enough time not to get bored with whatever nonsense they're singing about. Think of it as a heavier version of the Moldy Peaches. Some of the tracks here which first appeared as singles, have been re-done & slighty smoothed out for the album release. Makes you wonder how this crown jewel sounds as if it was both conceived and executed in mere days, while it takes certain afformentioned one hit wonders 6 years to make an un-extraordinary album. Pick of the week - at least it should cover the spread.

the stars feed the fish while middle fingers wish

this & that

This one of those weekends where I didn't really have any locked down plans heading into it, but looking back, wound up doing a ton of stuff during it.

After work friday I went straight to the Barrell House to catch the last of 3 red sox/yankees games that would pretty much decide who's going to win the AL east & who was going to get the wild card. I figured by going to a sports bar, I could watch the red sox game, and the white sox/indians game, which was crucial in the whole wild card equation. I even drank Sam Adams to be patriotic. The red sox won and I called it a night.

Saturday morning tickets went on sale for the 3rd Ween show in Boulder, this time at the Fox. The two shows at the Boulder Theater sold out in mere minutes (capacity is just under 1000). I was able to score tix online for both nights. I figured I could do the same for the Fox show, but after 15 minutes of not being able to connect to the site I freaked, hopped in my car and sped down to the hill to stand in a line that went down the block. Luckily, there was only one person working the ticket window, and he wasn't planning on fixing the server until he dealt with everyone in line first. It took about an hour and a half to get ticket numbers 245&246, then another 1/2 hour to stand in line again to get tickets 310&311. Luckily/randomly Stephanie Miller wound up in line behind me, so I had someone to pass the time with, besides a bunch of rabid ween fans.



Later on I fell asleep watching the red sox lose, then headed to denver to check out the Great American Beer Festival, which by the time robert & I showed up was completely sold out. This kind of threw a wrench in our works until we drank a pitcher of blue margarita and headed off to see The Rosebuds show. I dig their latest cd, but it didn't translate that well live, so we ditched after a while and ended up playing some board games.

Sunday, I watched the red sox win and the indians lose (once again we have successfully scrapped our way into the post season!) before heading to the movies with Meg to catch Flight Plan, which was actually a pretty good flick even though it was our second choice. We were originally going to see Proof, but somehow that theatre had flooded and was not operational.